8 Mar
2006
8 Mar
'06
3:01 p.m.
On Wed, 8 Mar 2006, Robert Schiele wrote:
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 08:00:01PM +0100, Sonja
Krause-Harder wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 07:23:01PM +0100, Robert Schiele wrote:
> > Actually I don't care whether it is a "shadow" svn or a
"shadow"
> > we-don't-use-revision-control-internally-at-all tool. Obviously software
> > (like the build script) is already deployed to the build server in a version
> > that is not in the public repository (because there is _no_ version of the
> > build script in the repository but the server does actually build packages
> > already).
> This is the backend part I mentioned.
...
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 08:06:00PM +0100, Adrian
Schroeter wrote:
...
The reason is basically that mls has his own mind
in which state he want to
release his code. And he does currently not feel comfortable to release the
current hacked version. So this is his private opinion, but he promised to
release it this week, so I would like to avoid to stress this issue too much.
I don't want to stress _this_ issue in special because it is only one instance
of the problem. But I want to use this example to stress the general issue of
the development model. The question is now: Do you want external developers
in the openSUSE project
or not? If you don't want them then you could just state that and I will see
that I did completely misunderstand the intention of the openSUSE project up
to now.
But if you want to attract external developers a change in the development
model should happen.
Would you as a KDE project member port KDE to a new version of Qt if Trolltech
would only give you a pointer to their API documentation of the new release
but not the library itself with the reason that the code is not yet in a state
that can be released? Would you feel comfortable if some employees of
Trolltech started to port KDE to the new version but you had no chance to test
their or your work because you don't have access to the new Qt release?
Would you port glibc to a new kernel if you get only the list of system calls
but not the kernel itself because it is not yet in a state the developer wants
to release?
So for the concrete example mls might reconsider when to release his code but
for the wider view of the whole openSUSE project you and all other people
responsible for the project might reconsider the general development model.
While doing that you should also take into account what happened to other open
source projects after changing the development model. For instance compare
the speed of development and quality of gcc before the egcs fork and
afterwards.
Please don't do the same your colleagues did while developing Xgl. I am sure
they are attracting now some developers from outside Novell because Xgl is a
shiny thing but they could have more if they did develop it in an open way
from the very beginning.
I agree totally with this. I started creating things with the first very
first public release of the SuSE linux distribution. I stopped after
being very frustrated with how things were. I every now and again look at
the cituation and wonder if I should start doing things again. I had done
a few packages for MySQL AB and their clients under NDA so I am not able
to make them public. But many of them moved to RH. This is in the US
where RH is big. I have always prefered SuSE or Caldera Linux above all
the other distributions. I am currently working with one other person on
a OSS alternitive to Appgen's Accounting SW.
The above describes exactly how I feel about this.
--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb(a)zenez.com>
ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047